


She Walks Into Mine

by ashen_key



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: CA2 spoilers, Gen, Identity Issues, Memory Alteration, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 21:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1442848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashen_key/pseuds/ashen_key
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's sitting in a café in Russia's Far East when he sees her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Walks Into Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Banner credit to the very awesome **[endeni](http://endeni.livejournal.com/profile)** , and many, many thanks to **[trace_of_scarlet](http://archiveofourown.org/users/trace_of_scarlet/pseuds/trace_of_scarlet)** for reading over, enabling, and generally being terrible ♥ .
> 
> Title comes from _Casablanca_.

He's sitting in a café in Khabarovsk when he sees her. The red-haired woman from Washington DC, from Ukraine, from his own head where she just wouldn't leave. She looks good; nice clothes, hair (back to) wavy, eyes clear, silver arrow at the hollow of her throat. Moving better than she should be, given he shot her through the shoulder a month ago. Pretty lady.

Terrifying. 

He stays seated. You run in front of hunters, they have to give chase. Meeting their eyes isn't a good idea either, but maybe he doesn't have a lot of good ideas right now. 

“So,” she says, lightly dropping down onto the chair opposite him. She smiles, a little. “Of all the gin-joints in all the towns...”

She's waiting, like she thinks he knows how to finish her sentence. He doesn't know her. 

“You've been following me,” he says. Russian to her English. 

“I was visiting someone.” Her mouth tilts a little to the side, but she sounds better in Russian. “And I was keeping an eye out for you.” 

“How?” 

“We've been trained to find the source, and I have more intel on you now. If you want to get to Europe from America without flying, the simplest way across Russia once you're off the boat is the Trans-Siberian railway-line.” She pours some soy sauce over her rice rolls, her hands unbearably elegant. “Also, you look like shit. I have a shower in my room.” 

“A shower. Wow.”

She regards him for a moment. “I'm not going to tell anyone you're here. Not yet.”

He thinks about the man on the bridge ( _Steve_ ) and can't tell if he's disappointed or relieved. “What _are_ you going to do?”

“Let you have a shower, if you want. And some food.”

“ _Why_.” 

She hesitates. “Because, outside Odessa, you shot me.” 

It's a ridiculous answer, but he remembers not being able to kill her. Somewhere behind that thought is the answer to why he goes with her. 

– – 

It's the longest shower he can remember. He's aware this isn't saying much, and the water pressure is crap, but he rests his head against the wall and lets the spray beat down on his back for ten whole minutes. 

Getting out, he wraps the towel around his hips and opens the en-suite door just a crack. She is still sitting on the couch, reading her book as if it were the only thing in the world to hold any interest for her. _Plutonia_ , reads the cover in bold Cyrillic. 

He shuts the door before she looks up. 

It takes until he's already pulled his shirt back on for him to do more than glance at the mirror, and then he can't look away. 

His face is a stranger's. 

His face is a stranger's, and this is a good thing. There are people looking for him who know his face, and Barnes' has been plastered all over that fucking exhibit. It's safer to look like a bearded stranger. Particularly if he's hitching his way across Eurasia. Blend in, look unobtrusive until ordered not to, except he's staring into the mirror and he doesn't know the man staring back. 

She's left her toiletries bag on the counter and he commandeers it. His neck is reddened by the time he's done, dotted with the occasional spot of blood, but with his now-clean hair tied back, he thinks...He thinks he recognises his reflection.

Even if he's not sure who, exactly, is looking back at him. 

– – 

“Feeling better?”

She sounds nothing but politely concerned. It makes it easier to answer. He nods. Thinks about opening his mouth. In the end, he just drops into the armchair. 

She gives the faintest of smiles in reply before continuing. “I wasn't going to order anything until you came out. Do you have any preferences?”

He runs his fingers through his hair then leans forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Who _are_ you?” 

“Natasha.” She makes a face at him. “Yes, really. Nataliya. Food?” 

“Nataliya...?”

“Nataliya Alianovna Romanova. But...you knew me as Ivanovna Bezukhova.”

_You knew me._

“I don't remember you.” His voice is harsh, even he can hear that. She continues to look unconcerned. 

“Not surprised. They wiped me, too. A few times. That was bad enough.” 

He stares at her. 

She looks back at him and then, carefully, puts her bookmark in her novel. She uncurls her legs, sits up straight. She, her; Nataliya, Natasha. If she's not lying. 

“What did they do to you? Not...not what they took. The room, the machine. What...”

_Did they strap you down, did they shove the bit between your tongue and your teeth, are you just fucking around with me like everybody else, did you get bruises on your wrists you don't remember, please just be lying please be telling the truth please just say something_

_Natasha_

_please._

“There was a chair,” she says. “I was tied down. There were machines either side, and the device would surround my head. I remember it hurt.” 

He laughs, short and choked. “Yeah.” 

“Dentist visits are nerve-wracking.” Her tone is wry. “Uh, and they wiped my memory. Shoved a bunch of crap in instead. I think I broke some of it, so they did again. So, I can't remember much.”

“But more than me.”

“I've been out since 1984. You'll get more back.”

More. Not all. He runs his fingers through his hair again and ends up clutching his hair, staring at the floor like the brown carpet holds some answers. 

“Natasha,” he says, and thinks he hears a sharp intake of breath. Not that he's looking up. “Natasha. What were we?”

“Important. We were important to each other. Friends, mostly. But we also had an affair.” 

The carpet had better start talking soon. 

“But you left.” He didn't mean to say that, he really didn't. He sounds stupidly lost. 

He _is_ stupidly lost. 

“Yes. I thought you were dead, but...I left. I learned that you weren't, but I couldn't...You're a hard man to track down.” 

“I shot you.”

He threw her into a car, rolled a grenade towards the sound of her voice, pulled more than one trigger to bring her down. He remembers that. He just doesn't remember _her_. 

“You never tried to kill me until you were directly ordered,” she counters. “How are you for documentation?”

Now he looks up. She has an interesting face, but behind those tired green eyes is a woman he can't predict at all. He doesn't know her. “Documentation?”

“Passports. ID. I...I can make you some. If you want me to.” 

“What-No. Why. Why do this? _Why do this?_ ”

“Because thirty years ago I left you behind,” she snaps, then looks briefly startled. She breathes and stares at the ceiling for a moment. “What you do with what I give you is entirely up to you. But the least I can do is help.” 

He rubs his mouth, studying her. Romanova, Bezukhova, Romanoff. Natasha. _You knew me_. Finally, he says, “Can you talk at the same time?”

“Yes.”

“A passport would be good.” 

“Okay.” She hesitates, and then moves to get up. Carefully. Maybe her painkillers are wearing off now. “What name do you want?”

“What name do I _**wa**_ -”

Want. He can choose. He can decide. It's not a stranger calling him _Bucky_ , it's not people talking about him in front of him, _Winter Soldier, Asset, him, it. Bucky._

_Your name is James Buchanan Barnes._

_What name do you want?_

He shuts his eyes, and the world stops for a while. 

– – 

Konstanin Maximovitch Morozov ends up being born in 1987. Did his time in the army, travelled ever since. He has vague plans to go to Mongolia and see the old Soviet airbases, but for now he's headed towards Europe and mountain ranges. Kostya is reading up the hiking trails, following his grandfather's rumoured footsteps. Kostya isn't running from anything, except maybe the mess in his head.

“Personae can be a little fucked up,” Natasha says, inspecting her handiwork. “They need to seem like believable people, and everyone is a little fucked up.” 

“What happens if he sticks around?” he asks. He thinks she'd shrug if her shoulder wasn't repairing. His handiwork. 

“Then he sticks. You don't have to be Barnes just because you were born with that name.” 

“You did.”

Her smile is small, but amused. “Sure, but I wanted to. Nataliya Ivanovna was a very angry little girl who couldn't forgive her parents for dying on her. I'd like to think that Nataliya Alianovna is aware that shit happens, but the world keeps going. Besides,” she adds, sliding the passport across the table, “my papa's name is so charmingly random.” 

He catches Kostya's passport with his left hand. There is nothing charming about James Buchanan Barnes, nothing entertaining except now he has _Captain fucking America_ on his trail. Rogers. Steve. Steve Rogers who destroyed everything. It's too raw to be funny. 

“When are you telling...him...where I am?” he asks, because the mission comes first.

“Tomorrow.” Carefully, she rubs her shoulder, and then her neck. “I'll take the couch.” 

That's at least easy. “No.”

She looks up at him, green eyes smudged with tiredness. “It's my hotel room. I sleep where I want. The couch is mine.”

“Leaving me with the floor or the door.”

She has many shades of being unimpressed, does Natasha of the many names. “You know exactly where you can sleep.” 

He's too tired to fight her. She'd talked until her voice scratched. It's not nearly enough information, but it's too much for anything else to be bearable. 

Still, one last effort.

“Won't your friend mind? The person you were visiting?” he adds when she frowns. Her brow clears, but the cast to her expression is...

Wistful.

“Alexei Andreyevitch has been dead for a while. He can handle it. Goodnight.” Her pause is odd, like she wants to a drop a name. An endearment. Something other than silence. 

He likes the silence. It's not presumptive. 

His boots are already by the door; he takes off his sweater, contemplates making a comment on the softness of the bed, and is asleep within twenty-five seconds.

– – 

The burn of sun on his eyes wakes him up. Swallowing the urge to sit up, stumble out of bed, _run_ , he takes stock of his surroundings without moving. Hotel room, hers. Natasha's, under the name of Anna Aleksandrovna Razanova. There's the sounds of cars and trams outside; inside, behind the bathroom door, the shower starts. Logical, given he can't see her. 

Carefully, he pushes back the covers, swings his feet to the ground, and stands. He thinks about waiting for her, but only for a moment. He needs to get going. He's not sure he really wants to deal with her complicated presence this morning, and at some point, she's going to be letting Rogers know where he is. Hoodie on, he walks over to the table to grab Konstanin Maximovitch's papers, then stops. Next to her neat forgeries is a neat note.

_I'll call Rogers at 1900.  
N_

Below it are two phone numbers clearly marked. Hers, and Rogers'. For too many seconds, he stands there, debating. Then he turns to find her wallet, helping herself to half her cash. Only practical, it's just practical, and hell, she doesn't seem the kind of woman to lack for access to funds. 

The shower stops and he listens for her. He can hear her opening cabinet drawers instead of walking towards the door, which buys him some more time. Then there is a muffled yet creative curse on the paternity of the wall-socket. 

He smiles before he's aware of it. It makes him stop, walk back to the table with that neat note. He rips off the sheet of paper, and folds it into his pocket. He doesn't have a phone, but...He could call. If he wanted. _Keep it under the tracking length,_ he thinks before climbing out the window. 

There's a train he wants to catch.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Ivanovna Bezukhova' is a reference to Natasha's comics-verse foster/adoptive father, Ivan Petrovitch Bezukhov, and Alexei Andreyevitch is a reference to her comics-verse husband, Alexei Andreyevitch Shostakov.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["She Walks Into Mine" Cover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1442914) by [endeni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/endeni/pseuds/endeni)




End file.
